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 Weird hearing
Author: David Spiegelthal 2017
Date:   2007-01-04 03:09

I've been having some strange stuff going on with my hearing and was wondering if anyone else has experienced something similar.

Synopsis: I've been fighting an inner ear infection in my left ear for about two weeks now. My left eustachian tube is completely blocked and the hearing on my left side is very muffled, with a constant ringing (tinnitis).

A couple of days ago I was trying to help my daughter tune her violin, and even with a tuner right in front of me, I couldn't get the thing to sound right. Then last night, I was listening to various music tapes through headphones and noticed that (a) the orchestras all sounded horribly out of tune, and (b) they were not playing together! Very strange, as these were top orchestras and I had listened to these same recordings many times and never noticed such problems!

Did some further listening experiments, and discovered a very weird phenomenon -- not only are the volume and frequency response of my left ear degraded from the infection, but I'm hearing sounds both delayed in time and displaced in frequency by about a quarter tone (or maybe less)! I didn't think it was possible for the ear to alter the frequency of incoming sound and add a time delay, but it's definitely happening to me. For example, a perfectly tuned grand piano right now sounds to me like the worst little out-of-tune bar piano you've ever heard. And what sounded to me like the recorded orchestra not playing together was in fact the left channel sound being slightly time-delayed compared to the right channel!

I'm a bit concerned about this, especially as I'm about to run out of the antibiotics prescribed by my doc and clearly my ear is still far from back to normal (I'm going back to see him within the next few days). But as a scientific observation, I find this odd phenomenon fascinating, and I'm hoping someone might have some knowledge of what I'm experiencing.

Anyone else heard of "EchoPlex-Flanger Ear Syndrome" (for lack of a better name)?



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 Re: Weird hearing
Author: donald 
Date:   2007-01-04 03:17

i have had similar problems- with loss of hearing and weird "phasing" effects (plus loss of balance). This was very distressing (esp as i had high profile gigs going on). Some months after i was tested, and my hearing was in the top end of the "normal" range, so no serious harm done it would seem. i hope that this is the case for you, and wish you the best of luck- i know how distressing these problems can be!
donald

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 Re: Weird hearing
Author: ChrisArcand 
Date:   2007-01-04 03:20

I don't know, friend, but man would I be freaking out. I'd be paranoid it's permanent or something (but it's simply an infection, and besides I wouldn't start worrying now!). I say from this perspective that it's absoultely fascinating but I don't think I would be if I had the same problem.

All I can say is that while this event is definatly interesting, I still wish you good health asap!

Chris Arcand



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 Re: Weird hearing
Author: ginny 
Date:   2007-01-04 04:07

I haven't had anything that bad, but I though all my reeds were just awful until my ear popped much to my surprise. Feel better soon.

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 Re: Weird hearing
Author: C2thew 
Date:   2007-01-04 05:24

Wow... i can only relate to the ringing in the ears. It's as if the high pitch sound vibrates at a frequency that creates the feeling when your ear transitions from air to water (jumping into a pool effect where the water rushes into your ear). That's pretty scary. hopefully antibiotics should do the trick. if not, it's time to see a doctor

yipes.

Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. they are but improved means to an unimproved end, an end which was already but too easy to arrive as railroads lead to Boston to New York
-Walden; Henry Thoreau

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 Re: Weird hearing
Author: b.roke 
Date:   2007-01-04 05:37

so dave - does that mean that now is not a good time to send you another mpc? bummer!

driving italian cars can do that sometimetimes though!!! i suggest changing to something japanese really soon.

cheers

steadfastness stands higher than any success

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 Re: Weird hearing
Author: clarnibass 
Date:   2007-01-04 05:57

On an Israeli music forum someone wrote about having the exact same problem. He heard about quarter tone sharper in his left ear (depending exactly on where he sat compared with the speakers even). He also heard a note constantly in his left ear, and it was really painful. He said the pains stopped after a few days with drops from doctor, the out of tune stopped after a few more days later, and the note stopped (recovered completely) after about 2 or 3 months.

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 Re: Weird hearing
Author: tictactux 2017
Date:   2007-01-04 06:01

David,

I'm a lifelong otitis media victim and can tell you it yields all kind of interesting (as you described) and less desirable (pain that's worse than untreaded toothache) phenomenons.

You must know that the whole middle ear (with the eardrum, ossicles) is affected, the tympanic cavity might be filled with liquid etc., thus affecting the reception and processing of the sound waves. Your brain on the other side of the equation is still healthy and has no concept of dealing with sub-par ear mechanics and so you're experiencing these doppler effects and pitch shifts etc. Eventually the brain would learn to sync both ears, but that requires seeing and hearing, e.g. looking at a bass drum player or a wood chopper where you can intellectually assign an isolated sound to an isolated visible action. Your infection should be over before that process kicks in. (When the antibiotics don't work, it was given for the wrong bacteria stem. Without treatment beyond pain relief, the disease will last seven days, with antibiotics only one week)

Interestingly enough, 40+ years of annual otitis haven't taken a too heavy toll, I can still hear reasonably well. Probably not good enough to tell silver plated from nickel plated keys or golden cork grease from white cork grease, though.

--
Ben

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 Re: Weird hearing
Author: joannew 
Date:   2007-01-04 09:09

I hear you! (pardon the pun  :))

In your case the problem is clearly associated with an infection, so I'm sure it will clear up in a short time. I've had strange hearing problems for a year and a half now, beginning on a long flight, after which my ears never re-equilibrated the pressure. Since then I've felt pressure in both ears - like they need to pop but never do, and fluctuating symptoms in the left ear, like tinnitus and loss of low-frequency hearing. The strange part is I have lost not only the air conduction response, but also the bone conduction hearing, which the doctors are having a hard time explaining. I have a hard time localizing sounds in space, since the two ears are no longer equivalent. I've also had periods during which I can't hear the oboe/flute range in a symphony - instead of the fundamental tones I hear a series of awful harmonics. Sometimes there are certain notes on the clarinet I just can't hear, which is very disconcerting while playing!

My colleagues are studying the transduction of the mechanical signal from the hair cells in the cochlea into the biochemical/electical signals that are picked up and interpreted by the brain, using single-molecule biophysical studies with intense nonlinear dynamical analysis. The ear is a fantastically sensitive organ, which can detect orders of magnitude greater range of frequency and volume than the comparable detection systems of our other sense organs.



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 Re: Weird hearing
Author: David Spiegelthal 2017
Date:   2007-01-04 13:58

Thanks to all for the sympathy and for relating your own experiences! I do feel a bit better knowing that my case is hardly unique, and that the problems should disappear with time and (proper) treatment. The ear and its associated signal processing in the brain are truly amazing, and we shouldn't take them for granted nor be cavalier in our treatment of them!

I'll post a follow-up if/when the problems are solved. Thanks again! In the meantime I'll have to figure out how to play while ignoring the bogus acoustical information coming in from the left side of my head..................

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 Re: Weird hearing
Author: Brenda Siewert 
Date:   2007-01-04 15:33

David, get well fast!! And, keep on those antibiotics until you're all clear. My youngest son had lots of problems like you are describing and our dr. told us it takes a long time to clear up something like that.

In the meantime, use your tuner and play according to the needle (or light).

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 Re: Weird hearing
Author: Tony Pay 2017
Date:   2007-01-04 16:04

The phenomenon is called 'Diplacusis', and most people experience it to a small extent -- try listening to a phone dial-tone alternating between right and left ears.

It can be chronic, and the result of ear damage of one sort or another, but in your case will probably clear up with your infection.

I have a colleague whose ears differ by nearly a semitone. The brain compensates, so that listening to music doesn't sound to him like a cacophony with two orchestras playing a semitone apart -- but he can't for example play with cans only on one ear and not the other in a recording session, as many people do.

Tony

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 Re: Weird hearing
Author: Escsrc 
Date:   2007-01-04 16:13

David- once the infection goes away, you may also want to go to an Eyes/Nose/Throat doctor and have him look in; after my last infection (and some hearing problems) we found out that part of the issue was compacted wax build-up in the ear. Just a thought.

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 Re: Weird hearing
Author: Chris P 
Date:   2007-01-04 18:03

I remember I had a blocked ear canal due to an infection which meant I could only hear with my right ear (fortunately it was the outer ear and was easy to treat with drops).

And I was surprised how this affected me as one morning for a listening exercise we had to repeat a sequence played to us, and I couldn't hear it well enough to remember it! I've never experienced anything like this, but from time to time I do lose hearing in one ear - it starts with a high pitched whistling then when that stops so does my hearing in that ear, but it recovers gradually.

Not sure what triggers it, though one time it happened during a rehearsal as I had a piccolo player on my left who constantly played sharp, and another time was sat next to a tuba player, and the last time it happened was in a restaraunt during our works Christmas do with no obvious loud noises (though the background noise with all the goings on may have been a bit much).

One thing I don't understand and what I see some trumpet players doing is tuning up with one finger in their ear. I can't do this as I find blocking one ear really impairs my hearing.

Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010

The opinions I express are my own.

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 Re: Weird hearing
Author: David Spiegelthal 2017
Date:   2007-01-04 18:42

Thanks for the additional information, especially the identification of "diplacusis", Tony! It's an interesting phenomenon, I found more information on it at: http://www.mmk.ei.tum.de/persons/ter/top/diplacus.html

Apparently it's a 'condition' that exists to a certain (small) degree in nearly everyone, but can be exacerbated by unilateral ear damage or disease such as I'm going through. It can also be a temporary or permanent condition, depending.

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 Re: Weird hearing
Author: Phat Cat 
Date:   2007-01-04 19:14

DS:

Hope your infection clears up and you're back to 100% soon. Will the potatoes be OK?



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 Re: Weird hearing
Author: mtague 
Date:   2007-01-04 20:27

I hope you get well soon DS!

Chris P, I also get something like that. Sometimes loud/sharp noises will cause my ear to hurt (throbbing stabs), or I will hear a strange high pitched noise that fades and then my hearing muffles (sometimes one ear, sometimes both). I always figured it was because I spent too much time at rock concerts without ear plugs standing right next to the bass amp. The doc always says my hearings fine when I ask.

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 Re: Weird hearing
Author: Ben 
Date:   2007-01-04 21:07

I've heard good things about a product called 'earplanes' to help keep your ears from getting damaged during a flight from changes in presure, especially when you have a cold. Does anyone here have experience with them? I'm planning to give them a try in a month when I fly next.

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 Re: Weird hearing
Author: Detru Cofidin 
Date:   2007-01-05 01:30

If the infection is putting pressure on your ear drum this could cause an effect on the way you hear pitch. As you may know, there are several different little devices inside our heads that vibrate to different frequencies (hairs, bones, etc). If one group of these "vibration sensors" is somehow affected by a condition like an infection, the vibration can be altered even to the extent of a changing pitch.

I know that whenever I get a cold, music sounds absolutely horrible because for some reason, bass frequencies always seem out of tune. This is probably because whatever detects those low frequencies is not resonating as well. This is strange to most people, but most people aren't as sensitive to music that is out of tune, so they don't acknowledge this. To people like us, it's very noticeable and very annoying.

As for the delays, it is very strange indeed. I would say that perhaps the pitch changes or decreased frequency response from the ears is perhaps convincing your mind that somehow there is a time difference between the sounds entering the two ears.

As you probably know, as you move further away from a sound, it's pitch decreases along with volume. So maybe if the mind is hearing a decreased or increased pitch on one side as compared to the other, it might be convinced that the sound is in fact delayed.

The mind does this funny stuff to try to maintain our perspective. If you wear lenses that turn your view completely upside down, and continue to wear them for a prolonged length of time, your mind will actually turn the picture right-side up, and then when you take the lenses out, your sight which was before normal before, under regular viewing circumstances, is now upside down, which can be very scary, but once again, after a while the mind turns the world right-side up again. Fascinating phenomenon if you ask me.

I would say, that there is no need to worry about this and just keep concentrating on getting rid of that infection. I'm sure you will once again hear music as it should be.

Nicholas Arend

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 Re: Weird hearing
Author: Mark Charette 
Date:   2007-01-05 01:41

Detru Cofidin wrote:

> As you probably know, as you move further away from a sound,
> it's pitch decreases along with volume.

Not unless you're actually moving away from the sound (doppler shift). At normal "human" speeds (walking, running), you're not going to notice it. At higher speeds (listening to a car approach/recede) you will. If you're static, there's no change.

There is a psychoacoustic effect (the Fletcher-Munsen curve) that shows a relationship between loudness and pitch - perhaps that was what you were thinking of? The pitch doesn't change, but our interpretation (especially between multiple pitches) does.

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 Re: Weird hearing
Author: sdr 
Date:   2007-01-05 02:15

Finally, a topic I can speak about with some authority!

Mr. Pay is correct in diagnosing diplacusis, the phenomenon of a pitch mismatch between your two ears. The other phenomena you describe, echoing and interaural time delay, are rather common complaints in many different middle and inner ear conditions. Your problem is most likely MIDDLE ear. Inner ear inflammation or infection is associated with profound vertigo and nerve deafness. Middle ear disease is in the air space behind the ear drum, which fills with mucus when its lining mucus membrane and that of the eustachian tube become swollen or inflamed.

***Pay attention to this next part(!!):***
If you experience new onset ear blockage/hearing loss, it is urgent to determine whether it is conductive hearing loss (muffling due to ear wax or middle ear fluid or problems with middle ear bones) or sensorineural hearing loss (a.k.a. nerve deafness). Try humming out loud. If you have an acute conductive hearing loss, you will hear your own voice "amplified" in the blocked ear. If you have acute nerve deafness, you will hear you voice in the "good" ear. In other words, internal sounds like your voice will lateralize toward a conductive loss and away from a sensorineural loss. Sudden sensorineural loss is a true otologic emergency with only a matter of days (or at best a couple of weeks) to get appropriate treatment if you hope to reverse the loss. Conductive hearing loss, on the other hand, is not an emergency at all --- annoying as can be, but not an emergency. It is almost always temporary.

If the middle ear is truly infected, it not only feels blocked, but it HURTS -- A LOT!! Occasionally the combination of eardrum inflammation and pressure of fluid and pus behind the drum will lead to a spontaneous rupture/perforation of the drum with release of blood and pus from the ear canal. Usually this is accompanied by dramatic relief of pain. Acute middle ear infection (a.k.a. acut otitis media) is treated (in the USA) with 10 days of oral antibiotics. In Europe it is more typical for patients to only receive 72 hours of antibiotics. If the drug is working, the ear should be pain-free within 72 hrs. Blockage and distortion of hearing can take an additional 2-8 weeks (!!) to clear. Persistence of the blockage is NOT an indication for prolonged antibiotic therapy. However, you should do the humming test to be sure your problem is purely conductive. If you have any doubt, you must see and otolaryngologist (ENT doc) for a check-up and audiogram.

-sdr
---------------------------------
Steven D. Rauch, MD
Assoc. Prof., Otolaryngology
Harvard Medical School
Otology Service
Mass. Eye & Ear Infirmary
Boston, MA

Tel: 617-573-3644
Fax: 617-573-3939
Email: steven_rauch@meei.harvard.edu
---------------------------------

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 Re: Weird hearing
Author: graham 
Date:   2007-01-05 07:40

Yes, I had the pitch differential aspect a few years ago. The radio sounded so appalling I got out a tuning fork and worked out that one ear was higher than the other by about a semi-tone. I thought it must be a brain malfunction because I could not work out how it could happen mechanically, but when the cold went so did the hearing issue and has never returned.

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 Re: Weird hearing
Author: David Spiegelthal 2017
Date:   2007-01-05 14:16

Thanks, Dr. Rauch. As far as I can tell, I have the less dangerous 'conductive' type, but I'll watch carefully. My G.P. started me on a five-day azithromycin program this morning, so hopefully that will kill the infection. The pain I've experienced has been minor, mostly I'm dealing with the lousy frequency response, pitch mismatch, echoing and interaural time delay as you describe them. I've very grateful to Mr. Pay and you for pinpointing this condition.

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 Re: Weird hearing
Author: Chris P 
Date:   2007-01-05 15:42

Does anyone here sometimes have their eustacian tubes stay open (but only temporarily), so you can hear yourself breathing?

I'm not alarmed by this - to me it's good to know my eustacian tubes work! If only they'd do this during landing (in an aeroplane) - they only seem to stay open momentarly when I'm not expecting it, rather than when I want them to.

Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010

The opinions I express are my own.

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 Re: Weird hearing
Author: tictactux 2017
Date:   2007-01-05 18:50

> Does anyone here sometimes have their eustacian tubes stay open (but
> only temporarily), so you can hear yourself breathing?

When I breathe fast with my tubes open, I'm getting slightly dizzy, not because of hyperventilating but because of my eardrum being stimulated in the infrasonic range.
(Frequencies of ~19Hz can't be heard but people are getting *extremely* uneasy when exposed to such "sounds" over longish periods of time. Just wait at an intersection for a heavy lorry running idle - you'll notice when the engine's running with 1140 RPM.)

Yawning every so often (not very difficult with the in-flight entertainment <cough> system) helps a lot.

--
Ben

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 Re: Weird hearing
Author: sdr 
Date:   2007-01-06 00:15

Chris P and tictactux,

Under normal circumstances the eustachian tube (ET) is closed, but opens momentarily during swallowing (approx. once/minute) due to traction by palatal muscles. When the ET does not open frequently enought patients feel ear fullness and autophony (hearing internal sounds such as chewing or breathing louder than external sounds). If the situation is severe enough, the middle ear fills with fluid. If this circumstance persists, it is often treated by draining the middle ear fluid (myringotomy) and inserting ventilating tubes in the eardrums to provide an alternative means of aeration.

Ironically, if the ET is "patulous" (hanging open all the time), it produces EXACTLY the same symptoms of ear fullness and autophony. However, not fluid builds up and no benefit is gained from myringotomy and ventilating tubes. ET obstruction can be differentiated from patulous ET by an ENT doc looking at the ear drum while the patient breathes forcefully in and out through the nose (usually with one nostril pressed shut). This forced nasal respiration maneuver delivers enough pressure change to the nasopharynx (area behind the palate) and up the ET that the observing ear doc can see the ear drum pulsing in and out with each breath.

Patulous ET is most often seen as a transient phenomenon after extended physical exertion, such as long distance running, when blood flow is diverted to other parts of the body and the ET is hyper-decongested. It can be seen as a more chronic problem with extreme or sudden weight loss. Patients with patulous ET generally have no symptoms when they first wake in the AM -- after lying down all night tissues are congested so the ET works pretty normally. However, once they've been up and around for an hour or so, gravity decongests the head and the ET starts hanging open. Autophony and stuffiness return. It makes patients extremely uncomfortable and is nearly impossible to treat.

-sdr
---------------------------------
Steven D. Rauch, MD
Assoc. Prof., Otolaryngology
Harvard Medical School
Otology Service
Mass. Eye & Ear Infirmary

Tel: 617-573-3644
Fax: 617-573-3939
Email: steven_rauch@meei.harvard.edu
---------------------------------

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 Re: Weird hearing
Author: Bob A 
Date:   2007-01-06 02:31

Dave, consideration:
Re 'Diplacusis'. If you have to go through the whole system and wind up with an audiologist to help, try to get one who 'speaks music'. My guy and I cannot get it together. My left ear is out of balance with my right, even with very expensive digital hearing aids and I cannot seem to convince him of this as his "gadgets" show my hearing as balanced as well as can be, considering the damage. At least with medication and these I don't flop over from vertigo as I used to, although perodically I suffer loss of balance.
Make sure you can explain what you are hearing and he understands you, even though his machines say different.
Bob A



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 Re: Weird hearing
Author: Detru Cofidin 
Date:   2007-01-06 02:34

Yes I was wrong about the distance. In most situations, you will not notice. It is the loudness-pitch relationship which I confused. Lower tones usually will not change "to the ears", as much as higher ones.

Nicholas Arend

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 Re: Weird hearing
Author: joannew 
Date:   2007-01-07 20:01

Nice to know we have a resident expert, sdr!
Maybe you could tell us a little more about how hearing via bone conduction works. If I understand correctly, when we speak (or play?) we rely more on bone conduction, which is why our own voice always sounds strange on recordings - it's not how we usually hear ourselves. But where along the pathway are the two signals (air & bone) combined? Is the bone resonance detected and processed by the cochlea in the same way as external sounds, or is there a separate analysis mechanism?
Thanks,
Joanne



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 Re: Weird hearing
Author: sdr 
Date:   2007-01-09 03:37

Joannew, you’ve asked deceptively complex question.

The middle ear sound conducting mechanism (ear drum and three middle ear bones, or “ossicles”) are an impedance matching system. Sound waves in air must get into the fluid of the inner ear to stimulate the auditory hair cells and send nerve signals to the brain. Have you ever tried to yell to someone whose head is under water? The density interface between fluid and air deflects the sound waves and they bounce off the surface of the water instead of penetrating. In order to overcome this impedance mismatch arising from the different densities of air and water, sound is collected by the ear drum over a wide surface area (approx. 100 sq. mm.) and delivered via the ossicular chain to the very small footplate of the stapes bone (a.k.a. “stirrup”), which has a surface area of only 3 sq. mm. That 3:1 area ratio of ear drum to stapes footplate provides nearly 30dB of gain to overcome to impedance mismatch created by the differing densities of air and water.

Thus air conduction hearing occurs when the stapes footplate vibrates in and out like a tiny piston. Bone conduction hearing is harder to describe, but it also must arise from differential motion between the stapes footplate and the inner ear. However, instead of the stapes moving in and out from sound hitting the ear drum, the entire skullbase is vibrating in response to internal sounds and these vibrations create a small amount of differential motion between footplate and bony otic capsule. Since these oscillations are very small compared to those produced by air conducted sound, we hear external sounds exclusively by air conduction and “internal sounds” (swallowing, chewing, our own voices) by a combination of the air and bone conduction. Since all the sound is arriving at the cochlea simultaneously and being processed simultaneously, we cannot distinguish what aspects of the sounds are air or bone conducted – it all just sounds “normal”. Of course if you hear a recording of your voice, there is no bone conducted component so the recording sounds different to you but not to other listeners. If you have blockage of air conducted hearing (e.g. ear wax build-up, large ear drum perforation, middle ear fluid build-up, or ossicular damage), the mix of air and bone conducted hearing will be shifted toward relatively more bone conduction. This is the sensation of ear stuffiness or “head in a barrel” sound that we get with a head cold or ear blockage on an airplane, known as “autophony.”

Regardless of whether they are delivered by air conduction or bone conduction, when sound vibrations enter the fluid of the cochlea, they cause deflection of the small fibers (“stereocilia”) atop the auditory hair cells, which in turn triggers a signal in adjacent auditory nerve fibers. The architecture of the cochlea (the snailshell-shaped hearing organ) works as a frequency sorting device. The ear serves to (1) collect sound and (2) sort it by frequency and intensity. All subsequent analyses – spatial localization, linguistic processing, music appreciation, etc. etc. etc., is performed centrally in the auditory centers of the brain. In order to accomplish acoustical signal collection and central transmission, the system is exquisitely sensitive to temporal characteristics. Temporal coding of auditory signals is maintained throughout the entire auditory system. Any damage to the system that reduces sensitivity, bandwidth, or temporal coding reduces the fidelity of hearing.

Sorry if this got too technical (or if it’s not technical enough). There is plenty of info on this topic, as well as all kinds of figures and illustrations all over the internet. You can start out at the website of the National Institutes of Heath (NIH) National Institute for Deafness and other Communication Disorders (NIDCD), www.nidcd.nih.gov.

-sdr
---------------------------------
Steven D. Rauch, MD
Assoc. Prof., Otolaryngology
Otology Service
Harvard Medical School
Mass. Eye & Ear Infirmary

Tel: 617-573-3644
Fax: 617-573-3939
Email: steven_rauch@meei.harvard.edu
---------------------------------

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 Re: Weird hearing
Author: joannew 
Date:   2007-01-09 06:36

many thanks, Dr R!



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 Re: Weird hearing
Author: Plonk 
Date:   2020-02-04 21:36

Resurrecting an old old thread, to ask if anyone has experienced what I have:

For the last few months, playing the clarinet has been causing crackling or squeaking in my left ear. It's worse when it's really loud - when I'm playing in concert band it's like a badly tuned, loud radio - but it happens when it's just me at home too.
It only happens when I, myself play the clarinet. It doesn't happen if I'm sitting through rests in band when the brass are blaring blastissimo, and it doesn't happen when I play the piano, so it must be connected to me blowing. High notes cause more problems, low ones are fine.

Another weird thing is that while playing in band, my sense of sound direction is screwed up - the flutes sit opposite me, but I could swear blind they sound like they are behind me. I even turned round expecting to see someone in the clarinet section behind me messing on the flute, but no!

I saw the GP today and there is no infection or wax build up. She said it might be something to do with pressure in the Eustachian tubes and to take allergy steroid nasal spray for 4 weeks, which I'll do, but I'm not convinced this will do anything, as I take a similar nasal spray for allergies anyway.

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